


After the darkness, there is always a dawn

by bythegrace



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, POV Jemma Simmons, Realization, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 05:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5956177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bythegrace/pseuds/bythegrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will had been the first man with whom she had coupled intimacy and affection. Their physical relationship had been such a different experience from everything that she had experienced before that she thought that theirs was a love that could never have an equal. At Will’s death she had (completely and erroneously) thought it was the end of the great passion of her life.</p><p>She had initially thought what she had with Fitz was a blander, paler thing. A truer friendship of course and an obvious meeting of the minds, but with less of the passion that she had always secretly equated with true love. </p><p>She knows now that for all her genius she can occasionally be a truly remarkable fool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the darkness, there is always a dawn

**Author's Note:**

> I always thought that Jemma was looking for Will in the pod (minority opinion I know). I think she had convinced herself that he was her true love, born of desperation and passion that she hadn't experienced before. Here she reflects on the evolution of her feelings after losing Will and her emotions towards Fitz. Canon compliant (for now)

She rises with a start and she has to breathe deeply for a moment to remind herself that it was just a dream, she is back on earth, safe and sound. Then she feels the old familiar constriction of her heart, Will is still dead and gone. 

The old dreams come infrequently now, it’s been more than two years since Fitz had saved her from that Hell. So much good has come into her life that she feels a deep sense of ingratitude for spending even a moment mourning the past. 

Yet the thoughts of that time echo back, muted now, the worst of the pain dulled by time. She gets out of bed, certain now that sleep won’t come easily, at least not immediately. She suddenly knows why she’s dreamt of Will again after all this time. 

She heads unconsciously to the kitchen, for tea sounds lovely. But as she reaches automatically for the kettle her hand stills, she suddenly can’t recall the recommended dose of caffeine and she sighs in resignation, reaching for a small saucepan and the milk instead. 

As her hand curves around the mug, she lets her eyes flutter shut and tries to recall the dream and like always she can only hold onto slender wisps, the essence rather than the particulars. They were in the cave together that much she remembers, she strains to remember Will’s voice or the feel of his fingers against her rib-cage but she can’t. Her memories are like an old photo, just flat images stripped of their feelings. 

Unconsciously her mind drifts towards a different time, to the moment when she realized Will was never ever coming back. That she can easily recall, the sense of utter desolation and hopelessness followed by resignation. She remembers thinking that she would never feel a love like that again. 

What a fool she was

She shakes her head, and she resolves for the 100th time not judge her past self so harshly. She had been a child after all in so many ways. 

Will had been the first man she had been intimate with whom she had shared some modicum of affection; their physical relationship had been such a different experience from everything that had she experienced before that she thought that theirs was a love that could never have an equal. At Will’s death she had (completely and erroneously) thought it was the end of the great passion of her life.

She had initially thought what she had with Fitz, was a blander, paler thing. A truer friendship of course, an obvious meeting of the minds, but with less of the passion that she had always secretly equated with true love.  
She knows now that for all her genius she can occasionally be a remarkable fool. 

She thinks how she had fallen into a relationship with Fitz partly because she adored him, but she had also done so with a sense of resignation, the idea that at least one of them could be truly happy. That she had settled for him in more ways than one. She cringes at how she had in many ways held Fitz at arms length; thinking herself incapable of feeling any more for him that she already did. She remembers how she held onto the memory of Will fiercely between them, like a talisman against future pain. She remembers wondering how she would have chosen between them, between passion and affection, between friendship and dependence. 

She absentmindedly raises her mug to her lips to find it empty, she rises and places the mug in the sink, it can wait till morning. 

She knows this dream was a goodbye of sorts; she is suddenly, but not unexpectedly, ready to return to bed once more. 

When she enters the bedroom the first rays of a cool winter’s dawn are just kissing the golden stubble on Fitz’s cheek, and Jemma feels herself (as always) nearly overcome by her love for him. 

And once more she marvels that she could have ever even contemplated choosing anyone but Fitz. She knows now with every fiber of her being that no matter what had happened with Will, even if he had lived, even if she had initially chosen him, she would have eventually found her way right back here, back to Fitz. He is everything, he always was and always will be.

Yet, realizing that she loved Fitz passionately and surely beyond any rhyme or reason was not something she could fix to any moment or hour, but a sum of every laugh, every caress, and every kiss that had come before. 

She thinks of the long dinners they shared, rediscovering one another, his dry observations finally drawing forth the deep unfettered laughter that she had thought she had lost forever on the blue planet. She thinks of watching him change a light bulb in their new bunk, his t-shirt rising just above the top of his jeans and her sudden, desperate desire to kiss the smooth pale skin it had revealed. She recalls a long car ride where she held one of his hands in her own, tracing its contours and marveling at their unrivaled loveliness. She remembers taking a mental picture of his expression the day they had perfected the new dispersal mechanism of the inhuman stabilizer, and thinking if she could spend eternity in this moment, it would be enough. 

She remembers the first time he had kissed his way down her neck that she had been in shock at the sensation, disbelief pulsing through her veins that she could feel such a depth of hunger and such an unrivaled, endless love for a man she had once viewed only as a friend. Then Fitz had rid her of every conscious thought and from that moment forward she was just a cacophony of want and need, of love and passion. 

She remembers how after their first time (long, long after they had initially gotten together) she had watched him for hours after he had fallen asleep. 

She had spent all the days after unconsciously falling deeper and deeper in love with him, so that it was now hard for her to remember where he ended and she began. He was now just as much a part of her as the tips of her fingers and parting with him just as inconceivable.

She gingerly moves aside the covers and curls into his embrace. He looks exhausted after returning from a mission late last night. He had fallen asleep almost before he had been entirely in bed, pausing only long enough to pull her into bed with him, wrapping her up in his arms like he was never going to let her go. 

She lightly runs her fingers against the smoothness of his skin and feels the firm muscle beneath. She wonders at how she has come to adore every light freckle on his skin, how every curl on his head has become worthy of its own piece of poetry. She marvels how she is able to feel more for him than she ever thought possible. 

Her hand unconsciously settles over her abdomen, she thinks of this baby, just a few weeks old now, formed entirely out of their love. Having him as the father of her child has brought another dimension to her affection for him, now she can picture him as a father, even a grandfather. He had made their future less an abstract thing, it’s now a corporeal being, a physical manifestation of their forever. 

She burrows deeper into his embrace and he stirs for a moment and shifts into her, cupping her cheek softly before kissing her deeply. Her last conscious thought is that she will tell him her news in the morning, but for the moment she will relish every kiss, every caress, every breathless whisper that she can. 

After all, it is only the dawn.


End file.
